Friday, 23 December 2011

December 23rd - venison and chips and chocolate

Dear Nigel,

Christmas is in full swing here and the food is flying out of the cupboards far faster than i put it in. Today we have venison casserole lovingly made earlier and frozen. But by the time it comes for dinner we are all worn out and comatose and i can't be bothered to peel lots of potatoes to make mash. So we have chips instead. Sacrilege i hear you say. But we don't care, we enjoy it anyway. Followed by a sticky toffee pudding and ice cream.

Yesterday i was making millionaire's shortbread, as requested by Tom. It's not the quickest thing to make or the cheapest, and, when it came to melting the chocolate to go on top i got complaints from my daughter that i was wasting good chocolate - two bars of lindt excellence - . I was rather taken aback. What does this say about my cooking in her eyes? or is chocolate only for eating? Should i resort to cooking chocolate or, heaven forbid, cake covering? Is the amount of time spent not worthy? Are the people likely to eat it not worthy either? It's an interesting question: what is worth enough and what is too high a price to pay (in any kind of sense). My mother has the same problem when it comes to putting good wine in a casserole, yet she will willingly pay a king's ransom for the meat. Others will lavish an inordinate amount of time on a poor quality piece of meat, or go for quantity over quality.

You've been icing your Christmas cake. The children and i did ours yesterday. I went for the ready-to-roll white marzipan and icing and was pleased with the unusually professional finish. Then i let the children loose with the decorations and they made sure it looked like a good old-fashioned homemade affair, like every year. I remember the American frosting my mum used to ice our cake with when i was a child. The idea was that you didn't have to use marzipan which we all detested. And this thick glossy coating, like whipped cream, did the trick. But as time went by it became harder and harder until you fairly needed a dentist drill to crack into the cake. It's not one of those family traditions i've been tempted to replicate.

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About Me

I watch the seasons passing in an endless series of meals,to be enjoyed,to comfort and to share.I started reading Nigel Slater' "The Kitchen diaries" and saw how our paths ran in parallel - the care-free man-about-town with immaculate taste, the care-worn single mother of seven out in the sticks, each adding a ladle of love to the food they provide for others.
It is November 2012 and I am now moving on to 'The kitchen Diaries volume 2'.
I had a lovely endorsement of my blog on Twitter today, 18th January 2013, Nigel Slater said, 'I cannot tell you how much @hilarykaren's enchanting blog has meant to me over the last year.'
It is January 2014. I have finished 'The Kitchen Diaries' and am now looking for an agent and publisher to try and turn the last two years' work into a book.
I am now turning my attention to 'EAT - the little book of fast food' and am adding a couple of new dimensions to my work which I hope you will enjoy.
It is September 2015. Nigel sends me a signed copy of his new book 'Kitchen Diaries 3' so that I can read, cook and write alongside it.